Ok, here's my problem.

Many months ago I had an eye infection (maybe you remember it, I posted a topic about it.) My mother told me that I should pay the money for the checkups and she would pay me back. And then the eye doctor told me our insurance plan would cover our money in the form of checks in the mail.

Got all that? Good.

Now, instead of my mom giving me the money she owed me, we reached an agreement where the money she owed me would be deducted from a larger bill I owed her. So we did that and have been merry since.

Here's the thing though....Those checks in the mail did evenually come in (I had thought they would never show up), and now I'm unsure who they should belong to, my mother or me.

Thoughts?

They belong to your mother. The only reason that she was deducting money from what you owed her was because you were to use that money to cover your eye infection which is what she was willing to pay for, otherwise she would have deducted the money before you had an eye infection (i.e. already forgiven what you owed her on the larger bill).

Since insurance said, "no, I'll pay" your mom had no reason to deduct the money, but since she already did, she gets the insurance money.

This leaves insurance paying the bill for the eye infection.

The money you have spent on the check-up payments have now been applied to reduce the amount that you owe your mother from the larger bill.

Your mother is now receiving payment (in the form of the insurance checks) of the money you owe her from the larger bill.


Another way of looking at it is that if you keep the money then it is like you paid the fees and now the insurance money is reimbursing you for the money you paid. That is all fine and dandy but then why would your mother be deducting money from the larger bill in this case? She would be deducting it by mistake, so you would still owe her the all that she has deducted if you think of it this way and decide to keep the checks.

Does your mom know that insurance was going to pay for it? What did she say about it?

She knew about the checks, and she knows I have them. I couldn't trust her claims that it was her money, because that seemed a biased decision based on the circumstances. In contrast, my views are also skewed so I can't make the 'right decision here because I'm biased like she is. I've put the money in a safe place and will give it to whoever it belongs to.

The way I'm thinking, is that there are two negatives from my account. One from paying the eye and paying the large bill. But, like you said, that larger bill can be seen as a plus. so....

I have a + and a -
My mother has a -

So, in reality, you're right Bo. If she was given the money then that would balance everything out, and we'd both be even.

That double-negative threw me off. Thanks Bo.